


In The Sun

by TheScorpion



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 11:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScorpion/pseuds/TheScorpion
Summary: 1991. In his own way, Armand tries to get through to Lestat not long before his suicide attempt.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	In The Sun

"Your photograph was in the newspaper.”

Lestat’s chin pressed into his shoulder as he slowly glanced behind him to where Armand had appeared on the beach. He had been sitting, watching the dark waves alone until then.

“I brought it with me,” Armand spoke again. “If you want to see it.”

He looked all wrong with palm trees in the background. He owned this island, but he did not belong here. Lestat turned his attention back to the water, back to the stars that stretched endlessly into eons of light beyond the horizon. One of his arms slipped from over his knee to let his fingers curl into the hot, white sand.

“Do you want to see it?” Armand was standing directly over him now. Lestat felt one of his knees brush his back. He felt the unsteady ground shift with his weight, felt the world turn below him, felt time slip by like water.

Holding up a hand, sand sliding carelessly into his silk sleeve, Lestat sighed. “Let’s have it.”

A rustling and Armand put a thin, folded paper into his hand and then moved to crouch at Lestat’s side.

“This isn’t a newspaper.” Lestat slipped back to lie on the sand, though he took the time to shoot Armand a look. “This is a tabloid.” He held it above himself and his eyes scanned the meaningless cover before he began slowly flipping through the pages.

Armand turned in the sand to look down at how the angle of the moonlight made Lestat’s eyes seem completely colorless. “It is on page eight.”

A single firework went off somewhere on the west side of the island, silhouetting everything in new ways. It might have been red or purple, and then it crackled and burnt out into a silver plume of ash.

“Page eight.” Lestat rolled his eyes, but he found it. His brows knit in confusion when he saw the photograph. “This…I don’t remember…I usually hear them when they take my picture.”

“It’s an old one.” Armand took the top of the paper and tilted it so that he could point. “It’s one of the same ones they once used on the front page the Herald.”

“The front page of the Herald?” Lestat’s eyes met Armand’s.

Armand nodded and his hand slipped from the paper to rest against the center of Lestat’s chest. “They repeat the photographs sometimes. You don’t go out much anymore. Once in New York, I saw the same one three weeks in a row in the Times.”

“Yes, once. But now...” Lestat laughed, and despite its flair, the sound was as dry as the sand under his head. "Page eight of…” He flipped to the paper's cover. “…of The Sun.” He laughed again and tossed the whole thing away. “The Sun!”

Frowning, Armand rose to retrieve it. “Missing your hour in the spotlight, Lestat?” He brushed the sand off the pages and put them back in order.

“No,” Lestat sighed and folded his arms under his head. “That’s not what I’m missing.”

There were too many points of light to see in the sky for any of the old constellations to matter anymore.

Armand knelt beside him again. “What is it, Lestat?” He spoke softly. “Why do you sit out here alone?”

“Let me see that thing again.” Lestat snatched back the paper and sat up to examine at the cover. “This is a UK tabloid. It’s today’s. Where did you get this?”

Armand slid an arm around his shoulders. “I thought you might want to see it.”

Lestat turned to stare at Armand, and the ocean breeze blew bits of his loose hair into his eyes.

Armand brushed them away for him and then pressed the paper into Lestat’s lap.

“What does it say about me?” Lestat asked quietly without looking at it.

“They interviewed the physician who bleached your skin and implanted your fangs. That you were a fraud.”

“Perhaps they’re right.” Lestat let the breeze pull the paper from his fingers, and it tumbled softly up the beach.

Armand did not even glance at it this time. His hand returned to Lestat’s face even though there was no hair there to brush away. “None of it means anything,” he whispered. “Stay here with us. You are thinking of someplace too far away for me to understand, Lestat. Don’t go there.”

Lestat took Armand’s hand. “You’re right,” he said as he studied its perfect surface slowly. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.” The hand was warm. He must have meant for it to be that way. Lestat met Armand’s eyes again as he let him have it back and said, “None of it does.”

Pulling away from Armand, Lestat shot into the sky. Immediately he was gone, not even a silver plume, not even a crackling spark, lost among the starry multitude.

Later, close to sunrise, when all the stars had faded, Armand found most of the pages of the paper caught around the base of a palm tree. He brushed off the sand and put them back in order. There hadn’t been any more fireworks even though he had waited for them. Tomorrow night, he could change that.


End file.
